The Golden Age of Islam | The Golden Age Episode 01

When you go out in the middle of the night and look at the seemingly billions of stars, you start to realize your position and scale
in a massive and indifferent universe but how many of those stars can you name? I can name around five, All of these names are actually Arabic. In fact, around two-thirds of the
stars that HAVE names, have Arabic names and we have one period of history
to thank for that, the Islamic Golden Age. First of all, What was the Golden Age of Islam? It was a period of time roughly around 500 years when scientific studies and research in fields like medicine, economics, mathematics geography, astronomy and many more were flourishing in the Islamic World. Muslims contributed greatly
to science, culture and literature. One of the most famous and scary examples is Algebra which was founded by Al-Khwarizmi, a Persian polymath. Here’s another question, what WAS Islamic about it? When we call it the Islamic Golden Age, the idea comes to mind that it was just Muslims but it really wasn’t. For instance, many of personal Physicians to the Abbasid Caliphs themselves, were Christians. A Christian called Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi was the head of the House of Wisdom for a long period of time, he was given that position by Al-Ma’mun. Jews and Zoroastrians played a huge role in translating old works of Greek, Roman, Persian, Chinese and Hindu origin into Arabic. People of all religions and cultures came together in Baghdad to fuel the Golden Age. So, from this point on, when I use the term Islamic Scholars, I don’t mean necessarily Muslim Scholars but also, Scholars from other faiths and cultures. I mean all scholars who worked under the patronage of a Muslim ruler or a state that had Islam as its state religion. So, when did the Golden Age start? A lot of people put the starting date around 786CE when caliph Harun al-Rashid ascended to the throne. Some Muslims tend to put it around 610CE when Muhammad received his revelation because well, of course, they do. I personally put it around 25th of January, 750 CE because, well, that’s easier to remember and that’s the year that the Abbasids came to power. All of them together made the conditions
that made a Golden Age even possible. For instance, Al-Mansur founded the city of Baghdad, the center of the Golden Age and paper was made famous during Al-Mahdi’s reign. As you might expect, paper played
a huge role in the Golden Age. It was taken from the Chinese in 751CE, during As-Saffah’s reign so you know, all of the caliphs before Harun al-Rashid played some role in the bringing the Golden Age. The most important thing, I think during the Golden Age, was the Translation Movement. Muslims were in control of many important center of learning of the ancient world. Cities like Alexandria, once home to the great library, now a mere shadow of its former self. Gondishapur, which was home to a great academy. Many alumnis of this academy went on to work at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. From these old cities, Muslims inherited a massive collection of books and manuscripts written primarily in Greek, Persian, Hebrew,
Aramaic and to some extent, Latin. Scholars went on to translate
these books to preserve their knowledge. They translated these books to Arabic. A huge number of ancient Greek works
only exist today because of this movement. I’ve even read somewhere that a scribe who translated a book was given the book’s weight in Gold. The christian physician I mentioned before Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi was known as the Sheikh of the Translators because he translated many books from Greek to Arabic including Plato’s Republic. Islamic Scholars didn’t only take and translate works, they also contributed to them. They learned from them
and did further research on them. Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, famously founded the basis of Algebra. He also made commentary and improved upon Ptolemy’s works on Geography. Ibn Mua’dh al-Jiyyani, inspired by Euclid’s work, wrote the earliest known treatise on spherical trigonometry. Ibn al-Haytham did groundbreaking work on optics. He was also the first known scholar to suggest the use of experimentation to prove hypothesis. I like to think of him as the first scientist. Ibn al-Nafis made commentaries on Hippocrates’ work and he also described the pulmonary circulation of blood. First known person to do so. I’ll go into more detail about the contributions of the Islamic Scholars in future videos about the Golden Age. Now, why Baghdad? In one word, I think, Geography. Baghdad was founded in Mesopotamia, which was rich in agriculture, so the city had the right conditions to grow, become a metropolitan city, one big enough to be rich and to house all the immigrants it needed and it did need a lot of immigrants. Educated people from throughout the empire or even beyond the empire were given
the incentive to move to Baghdad. This made sure all the smart people
were attracted to Baghdad. In addition to that, many center of
learning from the ancient world were under Islamic Control now,
thanks to more than a century of conquests. All these cities contributed their knowledge to the House of Wisdom. Persia, for instance, played a huge role. The academy mentioned earlier was home to thousands of manuscripts and hundreds of scholars. All of which were moved to Baghdad. Together these factors
created an intellectual revolution. The most important edge that the Abbasids had was that they controlled
a significant portion of the Silk Road. The Silk Road, if you don’t know, was an old network of trade routes that were used to trade goods between
China, India, the Middle East and Europe. Along with goods, ideas travelled on this road. Also, to some extent, disease but let’s not discuss that. Let say that the Indians invent something, if it looks like it’ll be profitable, some merchants will buy it from India and sell it in the Levant, maybe in Damascus or Jerusalem. From there, if it looks like it’ll sell in the European market, some merchant will take it to Europe. This way the world was very connected and the cities that were on the Silk Road were some of the most important cities in history. The Abbasid empire was controlling a significant portion of those cities so any ideas that travelled down the Silk Road, found its way to Baghdad. Now, when I was younger and I first read about the Golden Age, what came to my mind was that the Muslims just took works from other and made some improvements, that’s not a big deal but well, that’s one of the
reasons I wanna kill my younger self. As I grew up, I realized that you have to build up on the works of others. You can’t do anything without those who came before. “Our life is made by the death of others”,
as Leonardo Da Vinci said. If you’re a writer, you probably read a lot. If you’re an artist, you look at other artists’ artworks a lot. When you’re new to a field, you look at and learn from others who have been there before you and over time, you mix their style with your own
unique style and make something new. Sort of a remix and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m going to link a great video by Nerd Sync here. So, that’s why in this video, I keep talking about the importance of the older works that Baghdad had access to. Without them, there could
never have been a Golden Age of Islam. Muslims took works from the people who had been there before and remixed them to make something new. Then, the Europeans during the Renaissance took those works and remixed them to make something newer. The device that you’re watching this video on, for instance, has a microprocessor in it that runs on programming, an extension of the concepts proposed by the goddess Ada Lovelace. The program uses binary. Binary is made of two numbers, 1 and 0. 0 was popularized by the Islamic Scholars. Those Islamic Scholars took it from the Indians. The device you’re watching it on, might look like magic to those Indians but for us, it was sort of a natural progression over things that came before it. The end of the Golden Age is said to be in 1258 CE when Hulagu Khan sacked Baghdad. It’s said that the Tigris river ran black with ink from the books and manuscripts flung into the river. The leather covers of those books were used to make shoes by the Barbarians. For the Muslim world, the shock of this event was unparalleled. Baghdad was an important center of learning. It was a hub of international trade. It was the home to the Caliph. Anywhere from 200,000 to a million people were slaughtered. The Mongols killed so many people that Hulagu himself couldn’t stay in the city because of the stench of the dead bodies. However, I don’t believe
that this was the end of the Golden Age. It didn’t end as much as it dispersed. Islamic Scholars still continued to do scientific work in other places like Cordoba and Cairo. Scholars like Ibn Khaldun continued
to do great work away from Baghdad. All of this kinda makes you wonder what happened to the Muslims, how’d they go from pioneers of
science and culture to well, today. See you next time.

87 Replies to “The Golden Age of Islam | The Golden Age Episode 01”

Wow soooooo cool man i love it sooooo MUCH you are the Best history guy in the Islamic World😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇

Persia was always an amazing trade area. Trade from China, central Asia, India, the still rich byzantine empire (through ehich trade with russia and scandinavia came) and the rest of Europe through Venice it truly was the centre of the trade world.

I believe that the golden age ended when europe eclipsed the islamic world Despite destroying the Abbasid and Seljuks it the Mongols embraced Islam the Mali,Mamluk,Ottoman,mu-ghal,Saffarvid and the Muslim kingdon in the Indonesian archipelago were all golden ages after the Abbasids fell.

While most history channel on youtube emphasize on the history of Roman and European history, this channel take a different route and cover on the history of Islamic faith that is often not covered by other channel. This is the reason this channel is my fav history channel uptodate. Keep up the great work.

Hey I loved your concept of teaching history through Islamic eyes And will you cover the Delhi Sultanate and The Mughal Empire (considered the richest of its time more than the ottomans),btw love from India.

Maybe Muslim was too closed to Tom Hang missile E=mc2 Atheism so God stopped them by other unmatched force , but later Mongols them self become Muslim and made Citys like Samarkand and most Beautiful building in the world like Taj Mahal .

well its called "islamic" golden age just because there is not other thing in common for all these scientists, but the scientific method they used is a total victory of the rational over the scriptures, which orders you to believe without evidence, the Mutazila in the other hand didnt give a damn and priviledged the rational, but soon enough they were persecuted cuz any rational philosopher will end up questioning revelation and religion in general…in other words islam in its glorious form killed science in its birth.7:12 there is no evidence for that, the Boolean algebra was invented by Bool not Lovelace, and the concept of microprocessors was pioneered by Alan Turin, the Ada Lovelace take was just lately pushed by feminists, but it holds no ground.

I said this before, this channel needs to be promoted. there are a plethora of history channels on youtube dedicated to the distortion of our history. I always thought we need a history channel! I'm ready to help with research and funding.

Their is a reason the Middie east is referred to as the "The Land of Fallen Empires." Or "Forgotten Empires"

I heard that on a podcast about Rome. When I heard it, it struck me because of how true it is. But I believe that the region will prosper once again soon. I pray for Syria and Yemen in particular it's not so good there right now.

Subscribed after watching two of your videos. You've got a good voice along with knowledge, keep making videos your channel will grow inshallah. Look out for my comments, although you will probably not find them once you hit 100,000 subscribes, wish you luck my friend.

I am very interested in Islamic culture and history, in our college we focused mostly on European history. Your videos are an excellent source of information for me and they are very well presented! Thank you for your efforts and passion! ❤️

Great video Al Muqaddimah, keep up the good work! One very important thing I'd like to point out is that Muslim scholars and scientists had the integrity to credit the works they built on to their original sources as it was considered dishonest to not do that. Unfortunately, this was not the case with most Europeans and Westerners works as they seem to only credit the works to themselves without mentioning where they got the ideas or the bases of their ideas. This is why a lot of people do not know about Muslim scholars and the Islamic golden age. Furthermore, when they mention the Islamic golden age, they mostly just mention the translation they did without mentioning their contributions and their invention of totally new fields such as the science of optics ( first studied by ibn al-haytham). This is truly sad 🙁

i see that even you are appealed by the atrocities of your people you are not alone i too am shocked at the behavior of the modern Islamic population from treating women like property and giving them no rights to all that terrorism stuff there should be either a Islamic revolution to abolish these ways of thinking or a second Arab spring then again that might not be a good idea

THE WRONG SIDE OF GOLDEN AGE WAS THAT AFTER TRANSLATION INTO ARABIC, THE BOOKS WERE BURNED AND THE LIBRARIES WERE RAISED TO THE GROUND….. SO AS TO CALL IT ALL THE WORK OF ARABIC SCHOLARS….ONLY WITH THE START OF OTHMAN EMPIRE AND EUROPEAN RENAISSANCE IT WAS RECLAIMED BACK BY THE ORIGINAL OWNERS OF THOSE WORKS…..

present Islam is purely opposite to gold age. the present basard scalar of Islam just running one thing that "we have only one life and reason why we are here is just for examination to get places in paradise"what the fuck they teaching us is just shit nothing else.

A correction with due respect: Without the Vedic Hindu civilization. The Islamic civilization would not have any astronomy or stary names, if they did not borrow its knowledge from its predecessors, then cut off its source. Islam needs to thank someone else for their journey.

"Islamic golden age" is a wrong term. We should say Abbasid Golden Age. Because Haron and Mamoon were more like a secular ruler. They did not care about religion.And remember the name "Baghdad", the most important political and cultural city of the empire, is not islamic at all. It is not even monotheistic.

Asalamu aleykum brother great work. Its really enjoyable and educational listening and watching your videoes. so thank you for that. i also noticed you forgot to mention that Zanzibar and Somalia were both part of the Silk Road. Hope you do videos on the Somali and Omani sultanates that contributed to the spread of Islam in east Africa and Maldives.

I am happy to learn from your channel. The start of your video was the focus of stars and their arabic names. When I was in Iraq, the sky is noticeably different, and I mean that in every way possible because it is possible to not notice the billions of stars. In the U.S., stars are visble, but nothing at all like viewing the stars in Iraq. The region is higher in elevation, but the amount of stars in view is simply incredible. Lying on a surface at night when the sky is full is star dust and twinkles. I loved the views so much. It's quite an experience. The sun and the moon views are extraordinary as well. It's like a sunset in Florida. 😊😊😊

Arabs en Moslims get zero credit for all this stuff instead the West does like they invented everything. They only glorify there own names and almost never mention Muslim researchers that made all this possible.